HIST230 - GERMANY FROM UNIFICATION TO REUNIFICATION, 1870-1990

Description:

One of the most iconic images of the twentieth century shows recently united East and West Germans atop the Berlin Wall near the Brandenburg Gate following the demise of the German Democratic Republic in 1989. What long-term factors led to the reunification of Germany following its post-World War Two division? This course examines and follows the developments of German history and historiography beginning with Otto von Bismarck’s “revolution from above” that unified the German states in 1870 until the reunification of a divided Germany under Helmut Kohl in 1990.
Through instructor lectures, assigned readings, source analysis, and class discussions, we will explore themes such as Germany’s late and rapid industrialization and empire building through World War One; the (in)famous culture, changing gender conceptions, and failed attempt at democracy of the Weimar Republic; the social dynamics of everyday life during the Third Reich, World War Two and the Holocaust; the political and cultural dimensions of the Cold War division of Germany, including consumerism and youth culture; the fall of the Berlin Wall and East Germany, and reunification of the two German states; and finally, Germany’s complicated relationship to its Nazi past and Holocaust memory. We will also consider continuities and discontinuities in German history, including the question of whether Germany has followed a Sonderweg, or special path, that is singular among European states.